


from pieces of broken memories

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, nonlinear, this roll isn't over yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jason Grace’s eyes are strikingly blue, and they burn his skin more than any passing remark has before." -nonlinear-</p>
            </blockquote>





	from pieces of broken memories

**Author's Note:**

> this boy deserves so much love

 

 

 

It’s amazing, Nico muses, how much time can pass without really passing at all. He wonders how many days he’d spent down there, and wonders if anyone else wonders, if anyone else had wondered about him at all- he thinks probably not. The wind is cold on his face, and the water looks cold far beneath him; he wonders vaguely _how_ cold it is and how hard the wind would have to blow to push him into it. He presses his head against the wood of the mast and decides he’s had enough wondering for the night.

-

-

-

One, two, three, steps across the open ground. One, two, three times his foot hits the hard rock and sends a jarring pain up his body (he think he might’ve sprained his ankle). One, two, three dangerous dangerous steps, and if he stops now he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep going.

- 

-

-

Hazel’s hair is quite a sight to behold- impossibly curly, frizzy in the rain, a cascade of color falling onto her shoulders, so different from the fine dark hair Bianca would let him play with when she was in a good enough mood. Hazel is very different from Bianca. Her smile is different and her words are different and her touches are different. Hazel is different from Bianca in the best of ways, and Nico thinks Bianca would have loved to meet her.

-

-

-

The first thing he notices about Jason Grace is his eyes. They’re strikingly blue, almost _electric_ , sending volts straight through him when he stares.

Nico is a rather self-conscious person. He’s grown attuned to the whispers and stares over the years but that doesn’t mean they don’t bother him, don’t sink into his skin and make him feel less and less human and more and more like a monster, a spawn of hell- and he supposes that’s what he is really, a child born from hell and that’s where he already spends most of his days. A child born from hell that fell _deeper_ into hell, into a hell that wasn’t meant for him. 

Jason Grace’s eyes are strikingly blue, and they burn his skin more than any passing remark has before.

-

-

-

The cobblestone streets are gray, a dull arrangement of stones that don’t quite fit together, but manage to stay together somehow. The sky is rather gray too, covered in clouds that probably symbolize an oncoming storm. Their house isn’t gray though, that much he remembers. His mother’s smile wasn’t gray, and the stories she told them weren’t gray; his bed sheets weren’t gray and neither were his walls. The walls of the labyrinth aren’t gray either- they’re all sorts of colors: black or peeling or white or bricked. He sits with his back against the only gray wall he’s found so far and wonders, frustrated, why he can’t remember anything else.

-

-

-

Sleep comes in bits and pieces here and there. He hasn’t managed an entire night yet, and doesn’t think he really wants to. The flashes of fire and darkness and monsters and the feelings of poison in the back of his mouth don’t really make for a restful sleep, and he wakes from whatever few hours he catches feeling more exhausted than he had before. Food sticks to the sides of his throat when he tries to swallow, sits like a rock in his stomach and almost makes him want to throw up- a shame really, he loves mashed potatoes (how Leo programmed the ship to _make_ mashed potatoes is a mystery to him), and he wishes they tasted the same as they did before.

-

-

-

The second thing he notices about Jason Grace is the way he fights. Grace- his surname fits him well, Nico thinks. He fights with the ease of year and years of training, movements natural and flowing with the wind he controls so well, and he swings with _grace._ Jason Grace fights with the force of a powerful wind, and his voice carries through the air like a breeze. 

Nico mentally laughs at his own little joke because he doesn’t have the voice to laugh out loud yet, and it wasn’t very funny anyways.

-

-

-

The snow on the hill is chilling his feet, reaching him even through his shoes. Percy Jackson dashes in front of them, weapon drawn and face rigid and serious and says that he’ll protect them. The air around them is cold, but for a moment his heart is surprisingly warm.

The snow on the ground of the camp chills his feet too, sinking through his shoes again, and this time he doesn’t feel warm at all. The figurine in his hand is far too heavy and so is the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Percy Jackson doesn’t protect him this time; he shoves the cold hard truth at him and has the nerve to look _sorry_ about it. 

Nico runs, and he feels numb all the way through.

-

-

-

“Father!”

He’s much too excited for his own good, and he knows this somewhere in the back of his mind- but he’s excited and he hasn’t really been excited in a while.

“I heard children of Hades can travel by _shadow?”_

The lord of the Underworld looks bored and more than slightly annoyed. “Yes, Nico,” is all he says, short and to the point, just as every answer is with him.

“That must mean I can too, right?”

A deep, deep, obviously over-exaggerated sigh and Nico vaguely thinks maybe this is a bad idea, “Obviously, child,”

 “Will you teach me?” it comes out by accident, far too hopeful and he regrets it a moment later.

“No; figure it out on your own. I’m a busy god,” and that was that. 

Nico utters a mumble of apology and tries to ignore the disappointment and subtle shame that burns in his chest when he hurries away.

-

-

-

Cupid breaks him down and rips out the heart he’s tried so hard to sew back together. He rips it out and puts in on display for the son of Jupiter to see, rips it out and forces words out of him for his own amusement- disgusting words that make his mouth run dry when he spits them out and he really wishes he could disappear, crumble into dust like the skeletons around him.

Cupid knocks the wind out of him and squeezes out all the shame and embarrassment and stupid emotions he’s kept bottled up inside and rings him out to dry.

And Jason acts like he _understands._ He acts like he could possibly know what it feels like. He looks at him with pity instead of disgust and Nico doesn’t know how to react. He’s gone over scenarios like this (but nothing like _this,_ never like this) dozens upon dozens of times in his head, but this was never the outcome. 

Jason stares at him with those electric blue eyes of his and Nico wants to disappear.

-

-

-

Bianca’s smile is warm and her hand is soft when she ruffles his hair. 

Bianca’s smile is warm as she talks and laughs with the huntresses, and Nico wonders sadly what he did wrong.

-

-

-

The third thing he notices about Jason Grace is how his attitude can change so incredibly fast. A single day (though it feels like forever, feels like he’s had the world dumped on him and he hasn’t been able to breathe right since yesterday), and suddenly he’s glancing over at him whenever Nico bothers to come down from his new home up on the mast, suddenly he’s acting like he cares. Suddenly he acts like he has some obligation to become his friend when a few days ago he was eyeing him suspiciously, treating him like a stranger.  

-

-

-

Shadow travel is tricky to get the hang of. It’s almost scary at first, the way the darkness seems to grab onto him, trying to pull him further and further into it. He barely manages to look around and blink a few times before he’s on the ground- _asleep_ \- in a pile of leaves when he first tries it (China was a place he never thought he’d visit, but he kind of liked how different is was). It’s a difficult art to master, another world to navigate, but he does it, and for once he has _control._

-

-

-

He’s in his first war at the age of twelve. It’s almost exhilarating, the rush of the battle going on around him, exhilarating and terrifying because he doesn’t know if he’ll be the next one to be thrown or sliced or stabbed. Everyone is there, every face he’d seen the first time he arrived at camp, and plenty of new ones. His father is there and Percy is there and Annabeth is there- even Percy’s mother and the man she’s in love with and he really hopes they’ll be ok. Everyone is there and for once he feels like a he’s a part of something. Everyone is there and for once they treat him like a comrade. 

That feeling is short lived. He’s not sure what it is he did, but he walks into the courtyard and people look at him uncomfortably and he knows he’s not wanted anymore. No matter how much he tries, a son of Hades is still a son of Hades, and he knows he’s not exactly welcome here.

-

-

-

Jason Grace has the audacity to tell him that he’s _hiding,_ that he should _be himself,_ that he should _tell_ the others.

Jason Grace takes the poison Nico offers without hesitation, brings it to his lips without breaking the eye contact Nico knows scares most people- but Jason Grace is not most people, and might as well a different species altogether because he actually chooses to trusts him. 

Jason Grace is far too kind and far too bright and it hurts Nico’s eyes to look at him.

-

-

-

He brings his fist hard against the cavern wall- it stings and he can feel the gravel digging into his skin, but really everything aches at this point so it doesn’t make much of a difference. But the sting and the ache lets him know that this is real- no matter how much he wishes it wasn’t. He’s in the very pits of hell, and if this is reality, he desperately wishes he could wake up in a dream.

-

-

-

He’s having more fun than he remembers having in a while. The casino is filled with bright lights and buzzing screens and sugary treats unlike anything he’s ever seen. He plays for hours on the elevators, going up and down and reveling in the strange feeling of butterflies in his stomach he isn’t sure if he likes or not. He’s allowed to run through the halls and ask strangers questions (all sorts of people- different ways of speaking and different opinions on the state of the world and he finds that kind of odd, but this entire place is kind of odd). New games are new adventures and the food is amazing and he and Bianca laugh together and play together and forget the world outside as time tick tick ticks away.

-

-

-

_“You’re hated,”_

 

_“You’re alone,"_

 

_“You’ll never get out- why would you want to? You have nothing out there,”_

 

_“And she’d hate you if she found out; he would hate you,”_

 

_“They’d be disgusted,”_

 

_“Disgusted, disgusted, disgusted,”_

 

_“You don’t belong up there- child of Hades,”_

 

_“Give up; die here; it’s where you belong,”_

 

He doesn’t know if it’s the monsters or his mind or even Tartarus itself, but the voices continue to taunt him.

 

 _“No one will miss you anyways,"_  

 

And Nico believes them.

-

-

-

Reyna is everything he expects, and nothing he expects. She is brave, kind, powerful, strong-willed and strong-hearted and nothing short of amazing. She treats him like a person (cautiously at first, but she slowly slowly gets to know him and he slowly slowly gets to know her), treats him like a _friend_ \- probably the first real friend he’s ever had. She sees _him_ , sees his pain and his journey and his worst worst emotions. She treats him like a friend, and he is honored to call her one too.

-

-

-

Nico feels like his heart could stop when he sees Percy and Annabeth walk through the doors- alive, alive, amazingly, thankfully, alive. 

He’s fulfilled his promise. And he hopes to the gods that it won’t be in vain.

-

-

-

The first time Jason gives him a hug, he feels like he’s being shocked by lightening and simultaneously being suffocated. That’s not to say it’s not nice- it’s very warm and almost comforting if not for the need of air.

Nico has decided to stay, against everything he’s told himself and everything he’s told Jason. He’s decided to stay, and Jason is _happy_ about it. Honest to goodness happy to be in his presence- and he says so. 

And surprisingly, Nico believes him.

-

-

-

There’s a man on the sidewalk at the end of a street Nico often passes- somewhere dead set in the middle of Manhattan.

He talked with him once, a few years back, when he was alone with no one but a vengeful ghost for company and night was falling and it was rather cold out and he didn’t have the patience to find his way back to the labyrinth. The man had asked about his family, asked why he was out so late, asked why he was alone, to which Nico just shrugged and mumbled some half-hearted excuses. The man was probably homeless, he thinks, standing or sitting on the edge of the curb with a cup in his hand and a lonely expression on his face. The man had placed a coat over Nico’s shivering shoulders and smiled at him, the way he supposed fathers do.

There had been something off about his presence though, almost like he wasn’t quite there, wasn’t fully tangible. But he was clear as day and his heart was beating and Nico wasn’t sure what it was he felt 

He walks along the street and the man isn’t there. Nico’s heart clenches as he feels the man smiling down in the Fields of Asphodel, the way he supposes fathers do.

-

-

-

“Bianca?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think nightmares can come true?”

A pause, “Nope; not at all,”

“…Are you sure?" 

“Of course; whatever little monster you dream up next won’t come anywhere near you. And besides,” Bianca grins, eyes glinting kindly, “Your sis will never let anything happen to you,”

-

-

-

The second time Jason hugs him, the spark of lightening is back, and he wonders if it’s an aftereffect of physical contact with a son of the sky. It’s after a bit of a dangerous mission (he likes that word- it makes things sound more like the games he’d used to play and it has a nice ring to it), nothing he hasn’t handled before. But there was blood drawn and when he stumbles into camp with a nasty wound across his shoulder, Jason comes running (like his own personal Superman, he thinks absently, or maybe Captain America).

And when he trudges out of the infirmary a few hours later, he finds himself in the midst of Jason’s arms. A moment later and the other pulls back with a relived smile across his face, and a simple, “Glad you’re ok.”

Nico doesn’t acknowledge the heat rising to his face, and to his relief, neither does Jason.

-

-

-

Camp isn’t bad. There are still the occasional worried glances, the underlying intimidation and unease, and maybe he’s alright with that. He’s alright with the way the camps are working together, and he’s alright with the way he and his friends (it’s such an odd word to use, such an odd roll of his tongue) are working together.

He still needs to get away sometimes- some months more frequently than others- because he can’t stand being in the same place for too long (it makes him restless and slightly paranoid and sometimes he still feels like he can feel the ground under his feet moving in the heartbeat of Tartarus). But he’s alright with it.

And he’s alright with the way Jason’s hand brushes with his when they’re walking side by side sometimes. And he’s alright with the way he throws his arm over his shoulder when they’re eating or talking or laughing. And he’s alright with the way Percy and Annabeth look at each other and hold each other. And he’s alright with the way Jason smiles at him when he can’t stop laughing at something stupid he said. And he’s alright with the way Jason lets him into his cabin on the nights when he wakes with taunts in his head and cries in his ears.

And he’s alright- he’s _happy_ \- with the way Jason hugs him the third time.

And the fourth time.

And all the times after that.

 

 


End file.
